Do you remember the first time you ever saw Star Wars? Did you sit there analyzing the plot holes? Did you criticize the acting? Or were you drawn into a galaxy far, far away? Were you captured by the music and the scenery and the characters? Were you enchanted by it?
These days, with the help of social media, everyone feels the need to analyze every little rumor, disseminate the plot till it barely makes sense anymore (I do it too sometimes.) The worth of a movie comes in the form of domestic and international tickets sales instead of whether or not it made you laugh or made you think or made you cry or if you had fun watching it. Or even plain old nostalgia. And nowadays we don’t even wait for the movie to come out. We rip it apart at the sign of the first teaser trailer.
We sift through this art form with a fine toothed comb till whatever comes out the other end is a sad representation of the original piece. We’ve all gotten our grubby little hands on it. So at some point it doesn’t look familiar anymore. Popular opinion has won out over any worth it might have had all on it’s own.
Perhaps the original Star Wars trilogy lives in a bubble (at least for me it does) because this generation that lives online grew up with it and it holds great value to those of us who were raised watching it.
And the truth of the matter is that there are not as many movies out there that deserve our child like wonder. But I wish more people would give that a try! When I go to see a movie, it isn’t for the mass appeal or whether or not a franchise will come out of it, it’s for the pure enjoyment of being transported to a world we don’t get to live in everyday. A world of spies, a world of magic, a world of superheroes… heck a world of plain old heroes.
There is still joy to be had at the movies if we just put down our critics pen and come to the movies with the intent of enjoying it. Will you occasionally be disappointed by a film you desperately want to love? See Star Wars Episode II or the most recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Ironman 2. It’ll happen, but the truth is that there are enjoyable elements in every movie out there. I detested Man of Steel, yet I can still name 5 solid things I really liked about it. Can you say the same? Can you try?
Nerd in the City 
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